Talk:Michel Foucault

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Michel Foucault is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

Template:Oldpeerreview contrary to what it states above, I have submitted this article for peer review because I think it's good enough now to go to feature article status--XmarkX 10:45, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree it is, and since it's now gone on to WP:FAC, I've removed it from Peer review, according to policy.Bishonen | Talk 11:03, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you would like to go and say that on the FAC entry!--XmarkX 01:21, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This article is part of WikiProject Critical Theory, an attempt to build a comprehensive, detailed, and accessible guide to critical theory on Wikipedia. We have prepared a list of other articles in the field of critical theory. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.

This page has a lot of problems. Firstly, there's a lot of minor factual inaccuracies. Foucault was not in France much during 1968 and not in May. He was there briefly in the aftermath. Defert, however, was there. On that note, I have never heard this about Defert being posted to Tunisia before. I have also not heard this story about Foucault's early encounter with a psychiatrist. So I've edited that. There are also wide-ranging inaccuracies in the stuff about his thought, but I'll leave that till another night.User:mgekelly

The main biographical source I have for Foucault is Foucault for Beginners, which, while not breathtakingly reputable, is actually pretty good on most counts (Or, at least, the other books in the same series are). The chronology of where Foucault was when I got from Paul Russell's chronology in The Gay 100, which is quoted at [1] (http://foucault.info/foucault/biography.html). It has Foucault leaving Tunis in May of 1968 to teach in Vincennes. I'm willing to believe either of these sources to be wrong, but I'd like to know what your sources are first. Snowspinner 14:18, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

I am researching Foucault full-time at the moment. I have read all three of Foucault's biographies:Miller's The Passion of Michel Foucault, Didier Eribon's Michel Foucault and David Macey's The Lives of Michel Foucault. I have also read nearly all of what Foucault himself said in print about his biography. Foucault's own account of May 1968 can be found in 'Remarks on Marx' published by Semiotext(e). In my opinion the Foucault for Beginners book is really quite inaccurate about a lot of things, though obviously for its audience that might not be a big problem.

The definitive chronology of Foucault's life, however, is in volume 1 of Dits et Ecrits, the deifinitive collection of Foucault's shorter works in French. It shows that Foucault left Tunis in October 1968, and being appointed to Vincennes in December. It also shows that you were right about the Defert-Tunis connection.--XmarkX 05:50, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, cool. I yield to you on this one then. (Though I still think Foucault for Beginners is a pretty damn good quick reference. No substitution for the real books, but as accuarate as a summary can be) Snowspinner 05:53, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 Vocabulary 2 Bibliography 3 helping with this page 4 Merge and Redirect 5 Chomsky, Lakoff, Jacobs 6 Lead section rewrite? 7 ISBNs

Vocabulary

Most of the definitions here are wrong. I have removed the definition of discourse because it was wrong and not a key term in Foucault's thought. I don't know that Foucault uses 'exemplar' much, and it is certainly rather controversial to portray Foucault as having a relation to Kuhnian paradigms. In fact, the only things that are remotely correct here are the ones which give no definition, and then the definitions they link to are problematic.

I haven't gotten down to the definition section yet. In my vague and undefined plan for the article, that section at large was probably going to get deleted. Snowspinner 06:20, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

ok, so you'd be cool with me messing with it then? (as indeed I am already doing)--XmarkX 06:24, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please do. I appreciate any help I can get with this article. I'm trying to get it to featured status, but it's rather daunting to take on by itself.

Incidentally, have you considered joining Wikipedia:Wikiproject Critical theory? Snowspinner 06:31, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

Can I request a definition of governmentality from someone more familiar with the man than I? The term crops up in cultural resources management sometimes though I don't know if it's a core Foucaultism. adamsan 08:11, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Done--XmarkX 10:04, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wow, super speedy! Thanks XmarkX! adamsan 22:32, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Bibliography

I'm starting to think the bibliography is a bit redundant as we already go through the boks in the works section - we should at least integrate the two, as on the German version of this site.--XmarkX 02:04, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I was only going to hit major works in the works section - and even then, as you can see, the list had some notable ones (Archeology of Knowledge) left out. Also, the bibliography can be useful if we add ISBN numbers, as many other bibliographies on the site do.

Also, you really shouldn't delete other comments from this page. Snowspinner 02:19, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

Ok. Sorry about deleting that comment - I saw it as cleaning up, but if that's a no-no, I won't do it again.

I added the Archaeology of Knowledge to the works list now as it is a pretty important one. If we have to have a bibliography, we might focus on listing Foucualt's works in English, including the collections, and removing short works which appear in English within anthologies, not as monographs?--XmarkX 02:31, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - this is the English Wikipedia - it should be a bibliography of Foucault's published works in English, with ISBN numbers for ease of tracking down. Snowspinner 02:51, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

Is there some other page on another thinker we could be or are using as a model for this one?--XmarkX 04:48, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

helping with this page

As others point out here there's a lot wrong with this page. On the Foucault pages at CSUN (http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/foucault.home.html) I divided Foucault's work into two main categories, Archaeology and Genealogy, and subdivided those categories into objects of study. It's not the only way to make sense of his work nor necessarily the best, but it does make a lot more sense than a list of some works and then a list of undefined vocabulary words (some of which do not seem to me to be particularly Foucauldian). This page (http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/foucault2.html) shows the divisions and subdivisions I used; it might help make this page make more sense to organize things like this. I don't want to just do it myself without warning but if people seem to agree that it's a good idea I may just dive in. ... my 2 cents...

I think for now, a chronological order makes more sense. I think the vocabulary section should probably go eventually, but I wasn't going to take it out until the works section had been completed, figuring that most of the major Foucaldian terminology would be dealt with there. Snowspinner 02:00, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

I concur: the chronological approach is NPOV, whereas other subdivisions are matters of controversy. While Foucault himself identifies a change around 1970 from archaeology to genealogy, many comentators also identify a turn 'towards the subject' in the late 70s. Moreover, there is at least as much theoretical difference between 'Madness and Civilization' and 'The Archaeology of Knowledge' as there is between the latter and 'Discipline and Punish'.--XmarkX 02:29, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just to clear up any misunderstanding, the division I was recommending *is* chronological.

Of course, you are correct! The difference is that it adds detail which is disputed by Foucault scholars about the development of Foucault's thought, even if it is very commonly accepted - the genealogy/archaeology distinction should be in there as it was important to Foucault, but beyond that, it's best to talk about individual works and how they fit into Foucault's development than periodise. Aw, whatever.--XmarkX 04:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Which Foucault scholars dispute the difference between archaeology and genealogy? Seems strange, since as you mention, the difference was pretty significant for Foucault himself, and he was quite clear on that when he discussed it.

No-one denies that there was a change around 1970. The dispute is about the nature of the change. On the one hand, there is dispute about the idea that there is much coherence between the four 'archaeological' works. And on the other, and this is important because Foucault himself acknowledged it (in Remarks on Marx), this project of genealogy never really took off, because what Foucault found himself concerend with was analyses of power relations, not genealogy per se at all. The emergence of the concept of power, which is probably the most important thing in Foucault's work around this time, happened within the genealogical period, between the Discourse on Language and Discipline and Punish, and marks a change at least as significant as the shift between the 1969 Archaeology of Knowledge and the 1970 Discourse on Language.--XmarkX 01:41, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Merge and Redirect

There is some material at Discorso e verita nella Grecia antica that was previously listed at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English that needs merging into this page. See the deletion debate at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Discorso e verita nella Grecia antica for more information. Once it has been merged please redirect it to here.

The text in question is:

Sunday, 11 August 1996

The obligation of truth

The last lectures of Michel Foucault in Berkeley. The french philosopher "returns" to Ancient Greece seeking the traces of a lost virtue: parrhesia. In the autumn of 1983, one year before his death, Michel Foucault gave six lectures in the University of Berkeley dedicated to an extremely interesting subject: the Greek "parrhesia" ("παρρησία"). The transcripts of those lectures were recently gathered in a book titled "Discorso e verita nella Grecia antica" (Donzelli, 1996). They are essentially a part of a wider research to which Foucault dedicated the last years of his life. The french philosopher returns to the roots of the "critical tradition of the West". His goal is the construction of a "genealogy of the critical stance in western philosophy". In the epicentre of his research lies Greece and ancient greek philosophy. In the Greece of the 5th century BC, Foucault meets the first traces of a virtue later lost in the Christian world. The name of that virtue is "parrhesia". Its meaning is: "to tell the truth", "outspokenness". It's not enough to know the truth and to possess the knowledge and the techniques to discover it. It's also necessary to possess the ability and courage to speak the truth. "Truth" is the fundamental concept of philosophy. When we talk about truth, two problems immediately rise to the surface. The first is the "logical-epistemological" problem, meaning the problem of defining the criteria which permit us to discern whether a statement is true or not. The second problem is the "ethical-political", meaning the problem of the capacity to tell the truth, when it is not the simple accuracy of our statement that's being judged, but the right or the obligation to speak the truth. This second problem is analyzed by Foucault by a series of posed questions: "Who is in a position to speak the truth? Which are the ethical and spiritual assets that make someone capable to be presented and considered as one who speaks the truth? And for which issues is it important to tell the truth? For the world? The nature? The city? The mores? The man? What are the consequences of speaking the truth? Which are the positive effects for the city, the governors, the people? And, in the end, what is the relationship between the act of telling the truth and wielding power? Can speaking the truth coincide with wielding power, or must these activities be considered fully independent and separate? And can they be separated or does the one presuppose the other?" These four questions for the speaking of the truth as an activity -- who is in a position to speak the truth, for which issues, with which consequences, with what relationships to power-- seem to appear as a philosophical conundrum towards the end of the 5th century, revolving around Socrates, especially through his discussions with the sophists, about politics, rhetorics, ethics. The problem researched here by Foucault isn't to determine whether we can be sure a given statement is true (this has been the focus of the western philosophical tradition, creating what Foucault calls "the analytics of truth") but rather to know who is capable of speaking it. What is the importance to society of the existence of people capable of speaking the truth? How can we recognize these people? In the thematics of parrhesia, Foucault sees the beginnings of what in the West has been called "criticism" and which finds in Socrates its first grand example. Here philosophy is directly connected to politics. It's not at all a coincidence, after all, that philosophy and democracy were born together in ancient Greece, when the autarchic speech was confronted by the philosophical dialogue in which the opinions of the participants compete with each other -- and tyranny was confronted by democracy, in which the opinions of the citizens compete with each other. Athenean democracy was self-characterized explicitely as a state that ensures isegoria, which is the equal right of speech, isonomia, which is the equal right of everyone to take part in the wielding of power, and parrhesia, which is the right/obligation of speaking the truth. The word parrhesia appears for the first time in Euripides and is repeated often throughout Greek thought. We find it in Plato, in Diogenes, in Epicurus, in the stoics, and it reaches even to the to the texts of theology of the Fathers of the 5th century AD. For the last time it appears in Ioannis Chrysostomos. From there we lose its trace, and with it the courage of "speaking the truth" also withdraws and is lost. But why does Foucault speak about courage? The ancient Greeks thought that for someone to speak the truth he had to speak openly and tell all he had in his mind. Parrhesia presupposes also that there's no difference between what someone thinks and what they say. It's radically different therefore from what the ancient Greeks called "phronese" (prudence). But for someone to speak all they thought and considered true is a deed that can lead to serious dangers. Antigone's parrhesia leads to tragic results. Whoever has parrhesia also has the courage of risking danger for what they say. The councillors of the lord who speak the truth, run the danger of being punished, exiled or slain. The governot who openly speaks what is in his mind runs the danger of losing his popularity and common agreement in his policies. According to Foucault, parrhesia interjects a "rift" in the history of the West. It initiates the transition from opinion to the responsibility of truth. The responsibility of truth -- and therefore truth as an issue -- is born alongside the "subject". The birth of the subject represents a challenge to authority, to the point that it's connected with the exercise of criticism. For the ancient Greeks, criticism is authentic only when the person exercising it is in risk. In the case of Socrates, parrhesia becomes an issue of life and death. With Socrates parrhesia ceases to be identified with a rhetorical technique or with the mere intention of "speaking the truth". It begins instead to be connected and identified with a way of life, with example, with the harmony and consistency that a subject's life can embody. Socrates, in the name of all his earlier life, chooses death. He becomes therefore the symbol of a morality that refuses to betray the free search for truth. The case of Socrates shows also that whoever knows to speak the truth before others, is at the same time a man who makes solid a close relationship between what he says and what he lives. So, in a simple word (parrhesia) a series of ethical and political virtues are concentrated, to which all citizens should aspire. Whoever has parrhesia proves truly that he was a special relationship with truth, a relationship based on courage and sincerity, a given relationship with life that implies responsibility and danger, an authentic communication with others and with his own self that passes through criticism and self-criticism, an ethical perception that recognizes the worth of freedom and the obligation of telling the truth. In this way is the citizen born who is free, because he chooses to speak openly and sincerely instead of deceiving his fellow conversationist with various rhetorical techniques, because he chooses truth and not silence or falsehood, he chooses endangering his life instead of security, criticism instead of flattery, moral debt instead of personal gain or passivity or indifference.

-- Graham ☺ | Talk 21:21, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Chomsky, Lakoff, Jacobs

"His structuralist or poststructuralist leanings have led others to question the basis and sincerity of his political activism - a problem he shares with Noam Chomsky, George Lakoff and Jane Jacobs."

I don't know anything about Jacobs, but neither Chomsky or Lakoff are postmodernists. (Look into Chomsky's famous debate with Foucault if you don't believe me.) As such, I have no idea what this sentence is trying to get at, so it at the very least needs to be clarified significantly.

RadicalSubversiv E 09:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree. If I remember correctly Chomsky self-identifies as a modernist. Human Nature: Justice versus Power Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault (http://www.chomsky.info/debates/1971xxxx.htm) 1971. Hyacinth 00:42, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

More importantly, why would structuralist "leanings" cause one to doubt another's political convications? Isn't being a structuralist a political conviction? And how could both structuralist and poststructuralist leanings cause doubt? Wouldn't it be one or the other? Hyacinth 02:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Quite right- that's why we don't have that line in the article anymore!--XmarkX 04:54, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Lead section rewrite?

Isn't the lead section faintly ridiculous?

I mean, you can walk into pretty much any decent library, and not only pick up Foucault's books, but also browse through the indexes of dozens and dozens of other volumes which reference his work. Foucault isn't Mozart, but he's still far from an obscure figure whose influence needs to be supported by citing numbers.

In any case, the boring numbers should not be at the start of the page because they do not give the visitor (perhaps someone just discovering MF) any kind of relevant information. The figures merely bloat the lead section unnecessarily.

The list of Foucault's influence is also rather bloated. I would probably trim it down to something like:

• Outside the field of philosophy, his work has also been influential in numerous humanistic disciplines such as history, cultural studies, sociology, education, and literary theory. Kea 15:21, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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Kea, There is a lengthy discussion on the featured articles discussion for this entry concerning proof of Foucault's influence, hence the empirical reference to numbers to try and resolve the debate. I agree it is somewhat redundant but that is why those numbers are there.

I personally don't think that the influences mentioned are too bloated. It is important to stress that Foucault's work is used in applied professional areas and the social sciences as well as in the humanities. People working in the humanities are not always aware of this. For example, there is now quite a subindustry of books on management and Foucault and his impact in areas such as health studies (for example nursing) is quite significant. --Panopticon 20:45, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think some of the too-specific stuff in the lead section, as Kea suggests, would indeed be better moved into a section deeper in the article on Foucault's broad-ranging influence. As Panopticon notes, it's important to stress the social sciences and professional training as well as the humanities -- in fact, that is basically what the lead should say, leaving the specific subfields and supporting evidence until later in the article. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:10, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've taken a crack at this rewrite; see what you think. Changes are always welcome! -- Rbellin|Talk 21:25, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The lead section reads now much more fluently from the perspective of a newbie. Should "Since the 1970s," be added to the second sentence? The tricky thing (and the cause for the figures in the first place, if I've understood correctly) is that Foucault's influence really has been immense, and considering that it has only been something like three decades in the making, I can see how it might raise some eyebrows! Kea 21:38, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I really liked the solution of moving the influences discussion to a different section further down. The lead section now reads much better --Panopticon 22:52, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

ISBNs

I have also posted this remark on Josh's discussion page as he has now posted the ISBN needed twice. Timwi reverted the first edit and I reverted the second. I'm not sure that the Foucault entry needs ISBNs. There are multiple editions of Foucault's books in different languages and they are very easy to find. It would just confuse the issue adding ISBNs in a situation where there are multiple reprints of the same books. --Panopticon 22:48, 12 May 2005 (UTC)